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The best CEOs in our research display tremendous ambition for their company combined with the stoic will to do whatever it takes, no matter how brutal (within the bounds of the company’s core values), to make the company great.

James C. Collins

Whether you prevail or fail depends more on what you do to yourself than on what the world does to you.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Failing Prevail World
Great companies foster a productive tension between continuity and change.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Company Continuity Great Tension
The only way to deliver to the people who are achieving is to not burden them with the people who are not achieving.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Achieve People Way
You must maintain unwavering faith that you can and will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties, AND at the same time, have the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Faith Perseverance Reality
You not only want to win a gold medal at the Olympics, you not only can see yourself standing there on the podium, but you can also feel the goose bumps as your national anthem is played; the tears are in your eyes. (That’s how real a dream can be and should be)
JAMES C. COLLINS

Anthem Olympic Played Podium Standing
I can just let my curiosity wander unleashed.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Curiosity Unleashed Wander
Significant decisions carry risks and inevitably some will oppose it. In these settings, the great legislative leader must be artful in handling uncomfortable decisions, and this requires rigor.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Inevitably REquired Rigor Significant
No matter what. Wherever your mind wanders, it seems to turn up at the same Field of Dreams. It’s the vision you wake up with in the morning, and it’s the last thing you picture before you fall asleep.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Dream Morning Success
Not every financial company toppled during the 2008 crisis, and some seized the opportunity to take advantage of weaker competitors in the midst of the tumult.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Financial Midst Opportunity
First figure out your partners, then figure out what ideas to pursue. The most important thing isn’t the market you target, the product you develop or the financing, but the founding team.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Ideas Important Product Team
We must reject the idea… Well-intentioned, but dead wrong… That the primary path to greatness in the social sectors is to become “more like a business.” Most businesses… Like most of anything else in life… Fall somewhere between mediocre and good.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Business Fall Greatness
In a world of constant change, the fundamentals are more important than ever.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Communication Fundamentals Important
We learned that a former prisoner of war had more to teach us about what it takes to find a path to greatness than most books on corporate strategy.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Book Corporate Greatness Strategy War
Consider the idea that charisma can be as much a liability as an asset. Your strength of personality can sow the seeds of problems, when people filter the brutal facts from you.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Ideas Liability People Personality
Companies that change best over time know first and foremost what should not change.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Company Firsts Should
An organization is not truly great, if it cannot be great without you.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Great Organization People Without

The best CEOs in our research display tremendous ambition for their company combined with the stoic will to do whatever it takes, no matter how brutal (within the bounds of the company’s core values), to make the company great.

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The best CEOs in our research display tremendous ambition for their company combined with the stoic will to do whatever it takes, no matter how brutal (within the bounds of the company’s core values), to make the company great.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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